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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly Recommended!, April 7, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Hidden Writer (Paperback)
For the diarist, writer, avid reader or fan of Virginia Woolf, Anais Nin, Alice James, Katherine Mansfield, Marjory Fleming or May Sarton (or just for a lover of great writing!), this is a must-have book. I have kept a journal for nearly 20 years and have never thought much of it. In other words, it's part of me like my arm or leg is but in this book, journals are made into fascinating mirrors (or in some cases, pandora's boxes) of women writers. The author explains in great detail how each writer used her journal as a creative tool. The title "hidden writer" is somewhat misleading, as all the women in this book were published, but the "hidden" aspect perhaps refers to the private aspects of themselves they revealed only in their journals. Chapters on Katherine Mansfield and Virgina Woolf are exceptional. Johnson's research is phenomenal, layered and her narrative skill at tying it all together is amazing. Somewhat mediumistic, she dons a slightly different voice in each chapter, to best bring the writer's diaries to life. The book ends with a few journal entries from the author. A fascinating, memorable read. Anyone with an interest in writing, psychology, and creativity should find this a wonderful read! Recommended without fail!
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a candid look into the writer's life, August 1, 2002
This review is from: The Hidden Writer (Paperback)
Alexandra Johnson, who teaches writing at Harvard and Wellesley, provides us with six excellent stories about the role of the diary in the creative lives of seven prominent female writers. The chapters are arranged progressively according to both the age of the writers at the time they began writing the most celebrated parts of their journals, and to the time period in which they lived. For each chapter, Johnson slightly modifies her style to best capture the spirit of the particular writer's life, as recorded in her diary. It is a very effective narrative device, executed with remarkable precision, a style that is very difficult to carry off without sounding artificial and capricious. The role of memoir is often underestimated outside of literary fiction, but its importance is gaining ground. One need not be an English major at some liberal arts college like Amherst, Swarthmore, Smith, Vassar, Mount Holyoke, or Sarah Lawrence, to find the subject relevant and interesting. For example, we often rely on patient memoir as medical narrative in my graduate program in biomedical ethics at the University of Maryland. History, law, and even business are focusing more attention on personal narratives now than in years past. Still, it is in the diaries of writers where we find the most inspiring stories. In Johnson's book, the frustrations and insecurities of hailed writers are laid bare for us both in their journal excerpts and in the author's impressive ancillary research, making these past figures seem ever more human than what we usually grasp from reading their fiction. The incipient chapter on Marjory Fleming, with its occassional comparisons of the central figure to other important juvenile femmes de plume (Anne Frank and the young Bronte sisters), fills the reader with both charming amusement at how such a young girl could write like such an adult, and with awe at her gifted literary ability, which was cut so short by an early death. The next two chapters, on Sonya Tolstoy and Alice James, show us the age-old struggle of the aspiring female writer against male-imposed (both societal and familial) restrictions to her creative expression. These are among the most emotionally frustrating chapters; they often reminded me of the classes I took as a Women's Studies minor in college. My favorite chapter is about the relationship between the great Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield, as recorded in their diaries. The way that Johnson writes about these two, one can feel the writers living and breathing, conversing and writing, fretting and maligning, praising and rejoicing in their shared and individual literary triumphs and (often self-perceived) failures. Of all the chapters, this one is a true must-read for the bookworm short on time. The following chapter on the provocative (and promiscuous) Anais Nin reads almost like a confessional more than a biography. The most interesting points of this entry are where Nin confronts her own dishonesty within her diary's pages--the 'cardinal sin' of journal-keeping. Without saying so explicitly, Johnson shows the reader by example how important it is to keep one's diary devoid of any false stories or feelings. The last chapter on May Sarton is like smiling into the day's end--the golden years of one's life published in best-selling diaries. One is never too old to begin, I suppose. The six chapters are capped by a prologue and epilogue, both in the form of diary entries (they may very well be) from Johnson's contemporary life. This book, unlike so many other nonfiction books of its kind out there, reads like a seamless biography that entertains, informs, and (most importantly) moves the reader to a better appreciation of the interior lives of some great (and some overlooked) female writers and diarists. It is a book for reflection on the power and value of keeping a diary (or 'journal,' for us men), and for motivation for all of us to start keeping one of our own.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An unusual book with a lot of insight, January 5, 2008
This review is from: The Hidden Writer (Paperback)
This book examines several women writers through recent history, and how their practice of journal-keeping helped (or hindered in the case of Anais Nin) the finding of their unique voices and the moving of their private writing into the world in spite of the often huge barriers of their repressive time-periods and circumstances.
It starts in 1809 with Marjory Fleming, a six year-old Scottish prodigy whose diary became a huge success after her death at age nine from measles - and her older cousin and mentor who never published a word.
Then Sofia Tolstoy, in 1862, marries Leo Tolstoy who funnels her considerable energy and talent and intellect into scribing and organizing his own work.
In 1889, Alice James hides behind illness to avoid competing with her ambitious brothers Henry and William; she only manages to start a diary once she's a middle-aged invalid in England, far away from her famous American family. I found her story particularly haunting and appalling.
Next, Virginia Woolf and Katharine Mansfield chronicle in their journals their creative friendship and rivalry. Then there's Anais Nin in the twentieth century whose fame is secured by her bank-vault filled with less-than-truthful diaries; oddly enough, her fixation on her diaries keeps her from breaking through with a successful work of fiction.
Last comes May Sarton who goes where no one has gone before and writes with great candor about old age and solitude. The book is written in a scholarly, yet fluid, style that pulls you along. Very interesting.
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